Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Elon Musk part two the second time we
spoke in the podcast with parallels if
not in quality then an outfit to the
objectively speaking great a sequel of
all-time Godfather Part two as many
people know Elon Musk is a leader of
Tesla SpaceX your link and the boring
company well maybe less known is that
he's a world-class engineer and designer
constantly emphasizing first principles
thinking in taking on big engineering
problems that many before him will
consider impossible as scientists and
engineers most of us don't question the
way things are done we simply follow the
momentum of the crowd of revolutionary
ideas that change the world on the small
and large scales happen when you return
to the fundamentals and ask is there a
better way this conversation focuses on
the incredible engineering and
innovation done in brain computer
interfaces and neural link this work
promises to help treat neurobiological
diseases to help us further understand
the connection between the individual
neuron to the high-level function of the
human brain and finally to one day
expand the capacity of the brain through
two-way communication with computational
devices the internet and artificial
intelligence systems this is the
artificial intelligence podcast if you
enjoy it subscribe on YouTube apple
podcasts Spotify supported on patreon or
simply connect with me on Twitter Alex
Friedman spelled Fri D ma M and now as
an anonymous youtube commenter refer to
our previous conversation as the quote
historical first video of two robots
conversing without supervision here's
the second time the second conversation
with Elon Musk
let's start with an easy question about
consciousness in your view is
consciousness something that's unique to
humans there's is something that
permeates all matter almost like a
fundamental force of physics
I don't think consciousness permeates
all matter pants I just believe that
yeah there's a philosophical how would
you tell that's true that's a good point
I believe in scientific message don't
blow your mind anything but the
scientific method it's like you can't
test the hypothesis then you cannot
reach meaningful conclusion that it is
true do you think consciousness
understanding consciousness is within
the reach of science of the scientific
method we can dramatically improve our
understanding of consciousness you know
hard pressed to say that we understand
anything with complete accuracy but can
we dramatically improve ours that any
consciousness I believe the answer is
yes this Nai system in your view I have
to have consciousness in order to
achieve human-level or superhuman level
intelligence does it need to have some
of these human qualities that
consciousness may be a body may be a
fear of mortality capacity love those
kinds of silly human things it's
different you know there's this the
scientific method which I very much
believe in where something is true to
the degree that it is test ibly so
and and otherwise you're really just
talking about you know preferences or
full-on untestable beliefs or that you
know that kind of thing so ends up being
somewhat of a semantic question where we
were conflating a lot of things with the
word intelligence if we parse them out
and say you know all we headed towards
the future where an AI will be able to
out think us in every way then the
answer is unequivocally yes in order for
an AI system that needs to out think us
in every way it also needs to have a
capacity to have consciousness
self-awareness and Anjali will be
self-aware yes that's different from
consciousness I need to be in terms
words that what consciousness feels like
it feels like consciousness is in a
different dimension but this is this
could be just an illusion
you know if you damnit damage your brain
in some way physically you get you you
damage your consciousness which implies
that consciousness is a physical
phenomenon and in my view the thing is
that that I think are really quite quite
likely is that digital intelligence will
be able to out think us in every way and
it will soon be able to simulate what we
consider consciousness so to agree that
you would not be able to tell the
difference and from the from the aspect
of the scientific method it's it might
as well be consciousness if we can
simulate it perfectly if you can't tell
the difference and this is sort of the
Turing test but think of a more sort of
advanced version of the Turing test if
you if you're if you're talking to a
digital super intelligence and can't
tell if that is a computer or a human
like let's say just having conversation
of a phone or a video conference or
something where you're you you think
you're talking look looks like person
makes all of the right inflections and
movements and and all the small
subtleties that constitute a human and
talks like human makes mistakes like
you're hearing like look at that and you
literally just can't tell is this are
you
really conversing with a person or or an
AI might as well wear as well be human
so on a darker topic you've expressed
serious concern about existential
threats of AI it's perhaps one of the
greatest challenges our civilization
faces but since I would say we're kind
of an optimistic descendants of apes
perhaps we can find several paths of
escaping the harm of AI so if I can give
you three options maybe can comment
which do you think is the most promising
so one is scaling up efforts on AI
safety and beneficial I research and in
hope of finding an algorithmic or maybe
a policy solution to is becoming a
multiplanetary species as quickly as
possible and three is merging with AI
and and riding the wave of that
increasing intelligence as it
continuously improves what do you think
is most promising most interesting as a
civilization that we should invest in I
think that's this a lot that responder
investment going on nai
whereas a lack of investment is in AI
safety and there should be in my view a
cup an agency that oversees anything
related to AI to confirm that it is does
not represent a public safety risk just
as there is a regulatory authority for
this like the Food and Drug
Administration is that's the four corner
automotive safety there's the FA for
aircraft safety which generally comes a
conclusion that it is important to have
a government referee or a referee that
is serving the public interest in
ensuring that things are safe when when
there's a potential danger to the public
I would argue that AI is unequivocally
something that has potential to be
dangerous to the public and therefore
should have a regulatory agency just as
other things that are dangerous to the
public have a regulatory agency but let
me tell you problems with this is that
the government was very slowly and the
rate of the usually way a regulatory
agency comes into being is that
something terrible happens
there's a huge public outcry and years
after that there's a regulatory agency
or rule put in place takes something
like like seatbelts it was known for on
a decade or more
that seatbelts would have a massive
impact on safety and and save so many
lives in serious injuries and the car
industry fought the requirements put
seatbelts in tooth and nail that's crazy
yeah and and honor hundreds of thousands
of people probably died because of that
and they said people wouldn't buy cars
if their seatbelts just obviously absurd
you know or look at the back tobacco
industry and how long they fought any
thing about smoking that's part of why I
helped make that movie thank you for
smoking
you can sort of see just how pernicious
it can be when you have these companies
that effectively achieve regulatory
capture of government the bad people in
the AG community refer to the advent of
digital superintelligence as a
singularity that that is not to say that
it is good or bad but it that it is very
difficult to predict what will happen
after that point and and that there's
some probability it will be bad some
probably will be it will be good or if
they want you to affect that probability
and have it be more good than bad well
let me on the merger with AI question
and the incredible work that's being
done in your link there's a lot of
fascinating innovation here across
different disciplines going on so the
flexible wires the robotic sewing
machine that responds to brain movement
everything around ensuring safety and so
on so we currently understand very
little about the human brain do you also
hope that the work at neural link will
help us understand more about our about
the human mind about the brain yeah the
work in your like will definitely shut a
lot of insight into how the brain the
mind works right now just the data we
have regarding the how the brain works
is very limited we've collect fMRI which
is that that's kind of like putting us
you know a stethoscope on the outside of
a factory wall and then putting it like
all over the factory wall and you can
sort of hear the sounds but you don't
know what machines are doing really yeah
it's hard you can infer a few things but
it's very poor brushstroke in order to
really know what's going on in the brain
you really need you have to have high
precision sensors and then you want to
have stimulus and response like if you
trigger a new one what how do you feel
what do you see how does it change your
perception of the world you're speaking
to physically just getting close to the
brain being able to measure signals on
the brain yeah will give us sort of open
the door and inside the factory yes
being able to have high precision
sensors that tell you what individual
neurons are doing
and then being able to trigger a neuron
and see what the responses in the brain
so you can see the consequences of if
you fire this neuron what happens how do
you feel what is change
it'll be really profound to have this in
people because people can articulate
their change like if there's a change in
mood or if they've you know if they can
tell you if they can see better or hear
better or be able to form sentences
better or worse or you know their
memories are jogged or that kinda kind
of thing
so on the human side there's this
incredible general malleability
plasticity of the human brain the human
brain adapts adjusts and so on so it's
not that plastic to be totally Frank so
there's a firm structure but there
nevertheless there's some plasticity and
the open question is so if I could ask a
broad question is how much that
plasticity can be utilized sort of on
the human side there's some plasticity
in human brain and on the machine side
we have neural networks machine learning
artificial intelligence it's able to
adjust and figure out signals so there's
a mysterious language that we don't
perfectly understand that's within the
human brain and then we're trying to
understand that language to communicate
both directions so the brain is
adjusting a little bit we don't know how
much and the machine is adjusting where
do you see as they try to sort of reach
together almost like with an alien
species try to find a protocol
communication protocol that works where
do you see the biggest the the biggest
benefit arriving from on the machine
side or the human side do you see both
of them working together I think the
machine side is far more malleable and
the biological side well huge around so
it'll be the machine that adapts to the
brain that's the only thing that's
possible the brain can adapt that well
to to the machine you can't have neurons
start to regard an electrode as a nook
another neuron because you're not just
dislike the pulse and so something else
is pulsing see so this there is that
there is that that elasticity in the
inner
which we believe is something that can
happen but the vast majority of
malleability will have to be on the
machine side but it's interesting when
you look at that synaptic plasticity at
the interface ID there might be like an
emergent plasticity because it's a whole
nother it's not like in the brain it's a
whole nother extension of the brain you
know we might have to redefine what it
means to be malleable for the brain so
maybe the brain is able to adjust to
external interfaces there will be some
adjustment to the brain because there's
gonna be something reading and
simulating the the brain and so it will
adjust to to that thing but but well if
the vast majority the adjustment will be
on the machine side this is just if this
is just it has to be that otherwise it
will not work ultimately like we don't
currently operate on two layers we have
sort of lamech you like prime primitive
brain layer which is where all of our
kind of impulses or coming from it's
sort of like we've got we've got like a
monkey brain with a computer stuck on it
that's that's the human brain and a lot
of our impulses and everything are
driven by the monkey brain and the
computer of the cortex is constantly
trying to make the Montek monkey brain
happy it's not the cortex that's
steering the monkey right it's the
monkey brain steering the cortex you
know so the cortex is the part that
tells the story of the whole thing so we
convince ourselves it's more interesting
than just the monkey brain the cortex
just like what we'll call like human
intelligence you know it's like that's
like the advanced computer relative to
other creatures like other creatures do
not have either we're really they don't
they don't have the computer or they
have a very weak computer relative to
humans
but but it's just it's like it sort of
seems like surely the really smart thing
should control the dumb thing but
actually don't think it rolls this one
thing so do you think some of the same
kind of machine learning methods whether
that's natural language processing
applications are going to be applied for
the communication between the Machine
and the brain in to learn how to do
certain things like movement of the body
how to process visual stimuli and so on
do you see the value of using machine
learning to understand the language of
the two-way communication with the brain
yeah absolutely maybe we're a neural net
and that you know AI is basically known
that so it's like digital neural net
will interface with biological neural
net and hopefully bring us along for the
ride yeah but the vast majority of
aren't of our intelligence will be
digital there's no like so like things
like the the difference in intelligence
between your the cortex and limbic
system is gigantic your living system
really has no comprehension of what the
hell the cortex is doing it's just
literally hungry you know or tired or
angry or sexy or something you know it's
an ad just and then it that communicates
that's that impulse to the cortex and
Tails the cortex to go satisfy that then
a great deal of like a massive amount of
thinking like truly this stupendous
amount of thinking has gone into sex
without purpose without provocation
without procreation which which is
actually quite a silly action in the
absence of procreation it's a bit silly
the one why you doing it that's because
it makes the limbic system happy that's
why that's why but it's pretty absurd
really well the whole of existence is
pretty absurd in some kind of sense yeah
but I mean this does a lot of
computation has gone into how can I do
more of that
with the co-creation not even being a
factor this is I think a very important
area of research for NSFW an agency that
should receive a lot of funding
especially after this decision if I
propose the formation of a new agency oh
boy
what is the most exciting or some of the
most exciting things that you see in the
future impact of neural link both on the
size engineering a societal broad impact
so in your link I think that first will
solve a lot of brain related diseases so
creating from like autism schizophrenia
memory loss like everyone experiences
memory loss that at certain point in in
age parents can't remember their kids
names and that kind of thing so there's
like mount of good that neural link can
do in solving a critical critical damage
to brain or the spinal cord there's a
lot that can be done to improve quality
of life of individuals and that will be
those three steps along the way and then
ultimately it's intended to address the
the risk of the existential risks
associated with digital super
intelligence like we will not feel to be
smarter than a digital supercomputer so
therefore if you cannot beat them join
them and released we won't have that
option
so you have hope that your link will be
able to be a kind of connection to allow
us to to merge to ride the wave of the
improving AI systems I think the chances
above zero percent it's nonzero yeah
there's a chance and that's so what I've
seen dumb and dumber yes so I'm saying
there's a chance he's saying one in a
billion or one in a million whatever it
was the dumb and dumber you know it went
from maybe one a million to improving
maybe it'll be one in a thousand and
then 100 then one in ten depends on the
rate of improvement of neural link and
how fast we're able to do make progress
you know well I've talked to a few folks
here quite brilliant engineers some I'm
excited yeah I think it's like
fundamentally good you know who you know
giving somebody back full motor control
after they've had a spinal cord injury
you know restoring brain functionality
after a stroke solving debilitating
genetically orange brain diseases these
are all incredibly great I think and in
order to do these you have to be able to
interface with the neurons at detail
level and each build fire they're not
write neurons read the write neurons and
and then effectively you can create a
circuit replace what's broken with with
silicon and actually fill in them the
missing functionality and then over time
we can have with develop a tertiary
layer so if like limbic system is a
primary layer then the cortex is like a
sector the second layer now and I said
that you know the cortex is vastly more
intelligent than the limbic system but
people generally like the fact that they
have a living system and a cortex I've
met anyone who wants to lead either one
of them there like a girl keeping both
that's cool the limbic system is kind of
fun
tell us what the fun is absolutely and
then you people generally don't lose the
cortex either all right they're like
having the cortex and the limbic system
yeah and and then there's a tertiary
layer which will be digital super
intelligence and I think there's room
for optimism given that the cortex the
cortex is very intelligent and limbic
system is not and yet they work together
well perhaps they can be a tertiary
layer where digital super intelligence
lies and that that will be vastly more
intelligent than the cortex but still
coexist peacefully and in the end of an
EIN manner with the cortex and limbic
system that's a super exciting future
both on the low-low of engineering that
I saw is being done here and actual
possibility in the next few decades it's
important that Norling solved this
problem sooner rather than later because
the point at which we have digital super
intelligence that's when we pass the
singularity and and things become just
very uncertain it doesn't mean that
they're necessarily bad or good for the
point which we passed singularity things
become extremely unstable so we want to
have a human brain interface before the
singularity or at least not long after
it to minimize existential risk for
Humanity and consciousness as we know it
but there's a lot of fascinating actual
engineering a low-level problems here at
your link that yeah quite quite exciting
what the problems that we face in your
like art material science Electrical
Engineering software mechanical
engineering micro fabrication it's a
bunch of engineering disciplines
essentially that's where it comes down
to you have to have a a tiny electrode
so so small it doesn't hurt hurt neurons
but it's got to last for as long as a
person so it's gonna last for decades
and then you've got to take that signal
you've got to process that single looks
signal locally at low power so we need a
lot of chip design engineers that you
know cuz we're gonna do signal
processing and do so in a very power
efficient way so that we don't heat your
brain up because the brain is very heat
sensitive and then and then we're going
to take those signals I'm going to do
something with them and then we better
stimulate interest of stimulate the back
too you know so you could buy
directional communication so he's good
at material science software mechanical
engineering Electrical Engineering trip
design micro fabrication that's what
those are the things we need to work on
we need to a good material science so
that the we can have tiny electrodes
that last a long time and as the tough
thing with the science problems a tough
one because you're trying to read and
simulate electrically in a an
electrically active area your brain is
very electrically active in electro
chemically active so how do you have a
coating on the electrode that doesn't
dissolve over time and and is safe in
the brain this is a very hard problem
and then and then how do you collect
those signals in a way that is most
efficient because you really just have
very tiny amounts of power to process
those signals you know and then we need
to automate the whole thing so it's like
LASIK you know so it's just it's it's
not if this is done by neurosurgeons
there's no way it can scale to large
numbers of people and it needs to scales
large numbers of people because I think
ultimately we want the future repeated
to be determined by a large number of
the of humans do you think that this has
a chance to revolutionize surgery period
so neurosurgery and Ellis yeah for sure
it's gotta be like lazy like you met if
LASIK had to be hand done not done by
hand by a person that wouldn't be great
you know it's done by a robot and
they'll off the mall it just kind of
just needs to make sure
yo-you heads in my position and then
they just press button and go it's a
smart summon and soon Auto Park takes on
the full beautiful mess of parking lots
and their human human nonverbal
communication I think it has actually
the potential to have a profound impact
in changing how our civilization looks
at AI in robotics because this is the
first time human beings people that
don't own and test them Eve never seen
it doesn't hurt about a Tesla get to
watch hundreds of thousands of cars
without a driver yeah do you see it this
way almost like an education tool for
the world about AI do you feel the
burden of that the excitement of that or
do you just think it's a smart parking
feature
I do think you are getting at something
important which is most people have
never really seen a robot or at and what
what is the card that is autonomous it's
a four wheeled robot yeah the it
communicates a certain sort of message
with everything from safety to the
possibility of what AI could bring his
current limitations its current
challenges its what's possible do you
feel the burden of that almost like a
communicator educator to the world about
AI we were just really trying to make
fuels lives easier with autonomy but now
you mention it I think it will be an
eye-opener to people about robotics
because they have really never seen most
people never seen a robot and are
hundreds of thousands of Tesla's won't
be long before there's a million of them
that have autonomous capability and the
drive without a person in it and you use
you can see the kind of evolution of the
cars personality and and thinking with
each iteration of autopilot you can see
it's it's uncertain about this or it
gets it but now it's more certain now
now it's moving in a slightly different
way like I can tell immediately if a car
is on tells autopilot because got just
little nuances of movement it just moves
in a slightly different way it will
cause aunt Ella for example on the
highway are far more precise about being
in the center of the lane than a person
if you drive down the highway and look
at how at
where cars are the human driven cars are
in within their lane that like bumper
cars then like moving all over the place
the car and autopilot dead center
yes of the incredible work that's going
into that in your network it's learning
fast autonomy is still very very hard we
don't actually know how hard it is fully
of course you look at the most problems
you tackle this one included in with an
exponential lens but even with an
exponential improvement things can take
longer than expected sometimes so where
does Tesla currently stand on its quest
for full autonomy what's your sense when
can we see successful deployment of full
autonomy well on the highway already the
the probability of an intervention is
extremely low yes
so for highway autonomy with latest
release especially the probability of
need to intervene is this query is
really quite low in fact I'd say for
stop-and-go traffic did its Matt as far
safer than a person right now it's not
forget the probability of an injury or
an impact is much much lower for a pilot
in a person
and it was navigating
change lanes take highway interchanges
and then we're coming at it from the
other direction which is low speed full
autonomy and in a way this is like it's
like how does a person learn to drive
you learn to drive in parking lot you
know you know first time you learn to
drive probably wasn't jumping on Wolcott
Street in San Francisco
that'd be crazy you're driving in the
parking lot get things get things right
at low speed and and then the missing
piece that were working on is traffic
lights and stuff streets dr. Esau
streets obviously actually also
relatively easy because you know you
kind of know where the stuff Street is
was casing geocoded and then use
visualization to see where the line is
and stop the line to illuminate the GPS
are so it actually this is probably
complex traffic lights and very windy
roads are the two things that need to
get sold what's harder perception of
control for these problems so being able
to perfectly perceive everything or
figuring out a plan once you perceive
everything how to interact with all the
agents in the environment in your sense
from a learning perspective is
perception or action harder and then
giant beautiful multitask learning
neural network the hardest thing is
having a kur representation of the
physical objects in vector space so
transportation the visual input
primarily visual input some sonar and
radar and and then at creating the an
accurate vector space representation of
the objects around you once you have an
accurate vectors based representation
the flanker and control is relatively
easier it is relatively easy basically
once you have accurate vector
representation then then you're kind of
like a video game like it cars in like
Grand Theft Auto or something like they
work pretty well they drive down the
road they don't crash you know pretty
much unless you crash into them that's
because they've they've got an accurate
vectors based representation of where
the cars are and they're just bent and
then they're rendering that as the as
the output you have a sense high level
that Tesla's on track on being able to
achieve full autonomy so on the highway
yeah yeah absolutely
and still no driver state as a driver
sensing and we have driver sensing with
talk in the wheel that's right yeah by
the way just a quick comment on karaoke
most people think it's fun
but I also think it's a driving feature
I've been saying for a long time singing
in a car is really good for attention
management and vigilance management uh
sorry Tesla karaoke again it's great
it's the one of the most fun features of
the car do you think of a connection
between fun and safety sometimes yeah
they're both the same time that's great
I just met with and ruin wife of uh Carl
Sagan oh yeah directed cut cosmos I'm
generally a big fan of Paul Sagan he's
super cool and they had a great way of
bringing things
all that consciousness all civilization
everything we've ever known and done is
on this tiny blue dot people also get
they get too trapped in there this is
like squabbles amongst humans and this
don't think of a big picture they take
civilization and not continuing
existence for granted I shouldn't do
that look at the history of
civilizations their eyes and they fall
and now civilization is all it's
globalized and so we're civilization I
think now rises and falls together
there's no there's not geographic
isolation this is a big risk things
don't always go up that should be that's
an important lesson of history in 1990
at the request of Carl Sagan the Voyager
1 spacecraft which is a spacecraft
that's reaching out farther than
anything human made into space turned
around to take a picture of Earth from
3.7 billion
the way and as you're talking about the
pale blue dot that picture there takes
up less than a single pixel in that
image
you know appearing as a tiny blue dot as
pale blue dot as Carl Sagan called it so
he spoke about this dot of ours in 1994
and if you could humor me I was
wondering if in the last two minutes you
could read the words that he wrote
described in this buildup sure yes
finally the universe appears to be 13.8
billion years old
earth-like four-and-a-half billion years
old
you know another half billion years or
so the Sun will expand and probably
evaporate the oceans and make life
impossible on earth which means that if
it had taken consciousness temp sent
longer to evolve it would never have
balled it all its attempts and longer
and I wonder I wonder how many dead one
planet civilizations that are out there
in the cosmos that never made it to the
other planet and ultimately extinguish
themselves or were destroyed by external
factors probably a few it's only just
possible to try to travel to Mars just
barely if G was 10% more wouldn't work
really
if it empty was 10% lower it would be
easy plucking go single stage from
surface of module away surface of the
earth
there's Mars it's 37-cent with gravity
they're about a giant blue stick you
know forth channeling Costigan look
again at that dot that's here that's
home that's us on it everyone you love
everyone you know everyone you've ever
heard of every human being who ever was
lived out their lives the aggregate of
our joy and suffering thousands of
confident religions ideologies and
economic doctrines every hunter and
forager every hero and coward every
creator and destroyer of civilization
every King and peasant every young
couple in love every mother and father
hopeful child inventor and Explorer
every teacher of morals every corrupt
politician every superstar every Supreme
Leader every saint and sinner in the
history of our species lived there on a
mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam
our planet is a lonely speck in the
great enveloping cosmic dark in our
obscurity in all this vastness there is
no hint that help will come from
elsewhere to save us from ourselves the
earth is the only world known so far to
harbor life there is nowhere else at
least in the near future to which our
species could migrate this is not true
this is Fault Mars and I think Carl
Sagan would agree with that
he couldn't even imagine it at that time
so thank you for making the world dream
and thank you for talking today I really
appreciate it thank you
you